1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for providing a push notification service, and more particularly, to a server cluster for a push notification service, which includes a management server for managing connection between a push server and a mobile terminal and the push server for push notification, and a method for the push notification service.
2. Description of the Related Art
A push notification server is a gateway between a push notification providing server for a push notification service and a mobile terminal, and relays a push notification message sent from the push notification providing server to its connected mobile terminal.
The push notification server is used by a developer of an application program installed in the mobile terminal to transmit a notification message to the installed application program.
A server cluster consists of independent computer systems that operate together as if they are a single system, and allows a client to use server resources as if using a single server. This cluster scheme can improve extensibility and reliability, due to the ease of adding additional server extensions for server performance improvement as well as the ability to use another system to immediately provide a service when a problem occurs within a particular system.
In a general server cluster system, all requests are made through a load balance server (or switch) positioned at a front end. For a web application, in most cases, it is important to give a response to a request as rapidly as possible, such that the server cluster system is configured to receive as many one-shot connection sessions as possible.
As such, in a conventional push notification server, almost all requests must maintain a connection session during a heartbeat interval, resulting in high cost for maintaining the connection session.
Therefore, when a push notification server is configured with a conventional general server cluster system, the load of the load balance server extremely increases, resulting in additional expenses.
Even with the additional expenses, such a configuration with general server cluster may not meet the requirements of the push notification server.